Above found @: Tricia Goyer
"'While Lee Kaplan lived with 12 girls in his Pennsylvania home, authorities say, he allegedly brainwashed them to believe he was a prophet of God — grooming several of them for sex and calling six of them his “wives.”
Prosecutors this week revealed these and other harrowing details of the girls’ years of alleged mental and sexual abuse, as the investigation of Kaplan continues and he faces multiplying charges.
“This guy set up a virtual feeding ground of victims,” Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub tells PEOPLE. “He preyed upon [the girls] one by one.”
Kaplan, who was charged with sex crimes after police rescued the girls from his home in June, is now accused of not only fathering two children with the eldest of the girls but also sexually abusing five of her younger sisters, Weintraub announced on Monday.
He groomed them to believed that he was a religious, cult-like figure for whom they should submit their will.
After Kaplan’s arrest, the eldest of the girls told investigators she was 14 when her parents handed her over to Kaplan after he helped them financially. She told police she and Kaplan have two children together: a 3 year-old girl and a 10-month-old infant.
The eldest girl also said that years before moving into his home, Kaplan had his own bedroom in her parents’ Lancaster County home in Pennsylvania. She alleged that the sexual abuse started one night when she was 10. It didn’t stop until her rescue this summer.
“They were not only hearing [that the abuse was okay] from him but from their parents,” Weintraub alleges, noting that the girls’ mother, Savilla Stoltzfus, is believed to have been living with her daughters and Kaplan during the abuse.
The girls’ story gained national attention after authorities announced the couple’s alleged “gifting” of their eldest daughter to Kaplan.
The Stoltzfuses, who have been charged with child endangerment, told authorities their eldest daughter was set to wed Kaplan, a former business partner and family friend. The family lives in an Amish community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
Read entire story and watch video @: People.com
